The clock over the mantle read 3:43am and Ronan really should’ve been sleeping. It wasn’t like he didn’t try. After coming back from midnight mass and spending a little time with the nerds who stayed up just to wait for him and Matthew, he’d laid down in bed feeling warm. Loved. He’d halfway dozed, pressed up against Adam’s back, a hand over his boyfriend’s heart. But real sleep hadn’t come.
It fucking figured really. He’d been so focused on making sure his friends were comfortable with all the Christmas shit that he hadn’t really thought about how having so many people in the house again for Christmas was going to kick him in the gut.
It was good. He wasn’t complaining, goddamn it. He was just…
He sat in front of the fireplace, only embers crackling inside of it now. The tree in the corner and the lights around the room splashed diffused color across the walls and over the pages of the photo album laid out in front of him. He’d been slowly flipping through it for a while now.
He wanted a drink.
Shit, he wanted ten drinks.
He brushed a thumb over his mother’s grinning face. She was sneaking up on Declan with a snowball in hand and Matthew was off to the side, two seconds from giving her away with his little hands lifting up to cover his mouth and his eyes the size of saucers. Ronan snorted, but the humor was quickly and sharply replaced with grief.
God he hated emotions sometimes. He swiped at the dampness on his face with a palm just as a noise alerted him to someone behind him.
“Who the fuck is lurking this late?” he asked quietly over his shoulder. “Dick, is that you?”
Adam woke up to an empty bed. Adam woke up because of an empty bed. Even without Cabeswater being finely attuned to emotions and general physicality of the people tied to it, Adam was always acutely aware of Ronan's presence. He had been following it for years. And so he reached for an open cold space, receiving a fistful of blanket instead of his boyfriend. Adam squinted in the low light at his watch on the nightstand. It was still too early for anyone to be up.
He waited in the heavy quiet of the room—maybe Ronan was in the bathroom, getting water, keeping Gansey company, anything—but the silence continued and Adam felt a little ill at the thought of Ronan doing anything alone on Christmas.
Wrapped in the quilt from their bed, Adam made a steady path from the bedroom and down the stairs. He had attempted to make his check as non-obtrusive as possible—take a quick look and slip back upstairs before he intruded. Adam nearly made it too, but he forgot about the squeaky bottom step, and paused, closing his eyes in a self-reprimand. He couldn't hide now.
"It's me," Adam whispered back, and continued into the living room. Ronan, back lit by the lights and dying embers of the fireplace, did not seem as relaxed as the festive decorations would suggest.
As he got closer and saw what Ronan was looking at at almost four in the morning, Adam sat down beside him without question. "Can I see?"
A little bit of relief wormed its way into Ronan’s chest at the sight of Adam. At least he’d already seen Ronan like this, emotional and tripping down a heartache path. He had a way of handling it that didn’t make Ronan feel more vulnerable than he already was. Asking for the album was a good start.
Ronan exhaled and slid the album over the carpet. He wished he’d brought a mug of something in here with him. Something to hold so he didn’t chew on his bracelets. But he lifted his wrist to his mouth and stared into the fireplace.
“Did I wake you?” he mumbled around the leather. His gaze shifted over to Adam, frowning. “Thought I was quiet but those fucking stairs really need to be fixed.”
Adam wasted no time. He threw the blanket over Ronan's shoulders to huddle together and warm him, to keep him close, to prove that he wasn't alone here in whatever this had stirred up. Adam was careful with the album, the photos inside were precious. He had been attentive and gentle with every piece of Niall and Aurora that he helped pack away from the master bedroom. This was no exception.
"You didn't, you were," Adam said. It was a half lie to not add guilt to whatever emotions were currently dragging through Ronan. The stairs hadn't done it, only the absence of Ronan beside him during Christmas.
"I wanted to make sure you weren't alone." He glanced at Ronan then, worrying at his leather bands. Adam was fast, just a kiss to Ronan's shoulder and then gone, as he flipped to the next page of the album with all his genuine curiosity. It was full of snowy day Aurora photos, smiling between her sons. Adam couldn't help but smile back, warmed by the sheer feeling radiating from their closeness.
"How old were you here?" Adam asked with his attention still on the series of pictures. It was like giving Ronan privacy, not looking at him while Adam's fingers ghosted over photos. He was asking another question too: what made you want to look at this particular moment now?
Sometimes it felt surreal having Adam Parrish say things like I wanted to make sure you weren’t alone. Ronan felt alone as a dreamer, often, but it had been years since he felt alone as a person. He watched Adam quietly, enjoying the way the dim lights in the room kissed his beautiful face. He wanted to do the same, but his heart felt like it was being squeezed between claws. Affection right now might come off as needy. Anxious. He didn’t want that for Adam on Christmas.
Ronan dropped his hands to the album, one grazing close to Adam’s fingers. “Shit, nine? Ten, maybe. All I remember was it was a good year. Dad was...around. Declan wasn’t as much of a killjoy.” Ronan smirked and glanced towards the tree. “There are some of us using a tire swing in there. Real Hallmark movie crap.”
Years ago, Adam might have been painfully jealous of a Hallmark movie childhood during the holidays. He often had vivid daydreams that left that desperate want rattling around inside of him. But time spent away from the home that had suffocated Adam changed that envy into something else, a feeling of belonging that he appreciated so much more settled beside his boyfriend, like a shared nostalgia that he was invited into.
Adam rested his head on Ronan's shoulder and flipped another page of the album. "This doesn't even look like you," Adam said, pointing at another ten-year-old photo of Ronan, a smile in his voice. "There's so much hair." He kept going, one slow turn after another, admiring each spread and lingering on pictures of Aurora the most. Adam made sure to keep his attention on Ronan, sensitive to not flip until Ronan seemed ready for the next batch of memories for Christmas, all captured between these pages.
"Is there anything—" Adam started to say as he felt the warmth of the blanket with Ronan to prod absently at the embers in the fire with the poker. "I can do? To make this Christmas more like the ones in here?" He couldn't bring back Aurora or Niall, or bring Declan here, but the look Adam gave Ronan now said he would do anything.
Ronan was a little worried, as Adam started flipping through the pages. As if grief were a thing that could stain someone by proxy. But he supposed it already had. Adam was being careful with him and if that wasn’t a sign of Ronan’s loss affecting Adam’s behavior, then nothing was.
He tried to shut off his brain and just exist, pressed up against Adam’s side and watching his hands move, watching the faces of his family pass by. The corner of his mouth twitched up into a smirk at the mention of his hair.
“Don’t ask me to grow it out. I look too much like Declan with hair now.” It wasn’t said with any maliciousness, just that matter-of-fact kind of sibling joke that would be so much funnier if Declan were here to glower about it. Ronan reached for Adam’s hand once he let go of the poker and brought it to his mouth. “This Christmas is good just the way it is, Parrish. It’s shaping up to be the best one I’ve ever had, ok? I’m just...I almost forgot what it was like. Having so much family in the house. Sure, I wish there were even more but we both know I’m a greedy asshole.”
Adam gave Ronan a soft smile, all diffused by the warmth of the memories and the warmth of the house. It grew a little at the joke, and a little more at Ronan pressing his lips against his hand. The gesture always seemed like something small, and private, and theirs. Right before either one of them spoke some vulnerable, tender thing. Adam was waiting, Adam was listening.
He nodded. "I know," Adam said, because he knew Ronan, and knew that the Barns was always meant to be a place filled with people. Adam couldn't explain how sad it was to think about it sitting here empty for years. The thought of Ronan being alone in it at all, even for the holidays, was not a thought Adam wanted to entertain. He kissed his cheek instead.
"It can be this way, every year, you know. All the people you care about under one roof. It's a good feeling, it's one we should keep going," Adam said, pausing on a picture of Aurora and Ronan, standing in front of a Christmas tree in the same spot the current one was sitting. "And still wanting them here, even if the house is full of others, isn't greedy, Ronan."
It was Adam's turn to take Ronan's hand and kiss his knuckles. "You're always going to have something to remind you of them, but it doesn't mean because you have one thing now that you can't miss the other things from before."
Ronan felt his face heat, having his own dumb way of showing affection used back on him. He twisted his hand in Adam’s grip to cradle his cheek and leaned in to kiss the opposite one. It didn’t stop the embarrassment over how much he enjoyed these little touches but at least it hid his dumb face for a second.
“Fine, not greedy. Maybe I’m just feeling ungrateful. I’ve got a lot more than most people here.” He smiled, trying to lighten the moment, and dropped his hands back to the album to flip through to a page full of off-center pictures Matthew had obviously taken. The one that was practically up his nose made his smile twitch with amusement.
“Mostly I don’t want to wallow. Mom wouldn’t want that shit. She’d…” Emotion strangled the next words for a second but he forced them out with determination. “She’d be so fucking happy to have you all here. You, especially.”
"So we'll work on it," Adam said, as if it were that simple to shift wallowing into something else. It was almost hypocritical coming from someone who often had his sullen moods despite being keenly aware of what triggered them. He knew that Ronan had his own, and that this was one of those surprising emotional gut-punches. Adam didn't think Ronan flipped through photo albums at four in the morning for enjoyment.
He pressed his cheek into Ronan's hand, resting there and closing his eyes. The emphasis on Aurora would be happy that Adam was at the Barns for Christmas cause him to take a deep, grounding breath. His voice sounded strange, quiet and hopeful, as he asked, "You think so?"
Adam didn't get to spend much time with Aurora before she died, and it was difficult to connect the person he knew briefly in Cabeswater to the person Ronan grew up with, the mother in all these pictures. "I wish I got the chance to celebrate the holidays with her and you," Adam said. In his own attempt to lighten the mood, he added, "Although I might have horrified her with my lack of baking skills. But I think I would win bonus points for offering to do the dishes?'
“I know so,” Ronan said forcefully. “I…” He sighed and hooked an arm around Adam’s neck, reeling him in closer. “When you met her, she was kind of like a ghost. Still her, but faded. The way she was before…” He huffed a little laugh through his nose. The image in his head was crystal clear and even though it stung, it soothed his restless heart too.
“She’d have seen how fucking clever and hardworking you are in an instant. Probably teased you for it too. And then told you something embarrassing about me to make it even.” Turning his head, Ronan pressed his face into Adam’s hair. He had to close his eyes for a second, but his balance felt a little better when he opened them back up again. Draping himself around Adam probably helped. “She’d have made damn sure you felt wanted and welcome here.”
He couldn't help but laugh at the thought of Aurora making things even by embarrassing Ronan. Adam's mind came up with hundreds of perfectly cliche examples where Ronan was a rambunctious kid, being chased around by Aurora as happy as she was in these pictures. He shuffled closer to Ronan when he pulled him back in, tightening the blanket around them.
But he grew quiet again, wrapped up with Ronan, watching the fire die down, before whispering, "I feel wanted and welcomed here."
Adam remembered those first few times where he didn't. There was a coldness before Ronan moved in completely. There was an otherness that Adam couldn't shake for a while, always feeling like a guest in someone else's house. He couldn't pinpoint when that shift had occurred, when Adam started thinking about the Barns as home, but he knew Ronan knew. Maybe even knew before he did.
"I want to hear more about her. And maybe that's me being greedy," Adam said, nosing at Ronan's cheek. "There is so much of her in this house, so much of her inside your head that I can't even begin to imagine. I would never force you, but it could help. Cicero might have been on to something."
“Good,” Ronan grunted. “If you didn’t feel wanted and welcome here, I’d have to kick my own ass. This is your home.” He knew full well he’d been saying this a lot lately, but he didn’t even care. Adam needed to hear it as far as he was concerned. More than that, this needed to be the home Adam deserved. Especially around the holidays. He could picture Adam the year they first met, coming back after Christmas break looking just as exhausted and miserable as ever.
Never again.
Ronan scooted back against the sofa, propped one knee up, and stretched the other long leg out. He tapped Adam’s knee with his foot and held out a hand. “Come here, dumbass,” he said fondly. “I’ll tell you about my favorite Christmas. You can tell me…” After mulling it over a moment, he smirked, a challenge in his gaze. “You can tell me what your dream Christmas would be like ten years from now.”
The answering smile Adam gave Ronan was bright and brilliant, one he felt more comfortable showing off in private. He crawled over, settling between Ronan's legs, his back pressed to Ronan's chest. Adam felt wanted, he felt welcome, he felt happy securely tucked against Ronan.
"Ten years from now?" Adam asked, sounding a little incredulous. It wasn't that he hadn't thought of it, the future was never too distant for notoriously strategic Adam Parrish. But he found himself growing a little sheepish under the soft glow of the Christmas lights. His dreams weren't always rational or logical.
Adam pulled Ronan's arms around him, over his shoulders, so he could rest his left ear against Ronan's bicep like a pillow. And then he started talking, rambling; let his mind go in a completely unprecedented move. If Adam thought too hard about it, he'd ruin the dream, the potential reality that he wanted.
"We're here," Adam said, "because being home is my favorite place for the holidays and you know that. I took the whole week off from work, planned for it for months. I'm a better baker than I am now, my cookies are finally edible. Everyone is here, somehow we managed to coordinate it, and maybe we took pictures in those tacky sweaters. There's probably photographic evidence on the mantle."
At some point, Adam had begun to unconsciously ghost over Ronan's hands, lingering over his ring finger and then moving on. He didn't think he needed to say it; Adam wasn't sure he could. "It would be a lot like this, we're just ten years older."
Adam turned his head up to Ronan, for a kiss, and then said, "Your turn."
Encircling Adam with his body was about the easiest thing Ronan had ever done. He pressed his face into the joint where Adam’s neck met his shoulder. In this quiet place, at this obscenely early hour, he didn’t feel even a little embarrassment pressing his mouth to the skin of Adam’s shoulder, exposed by the loose collar of his shirt. Their heartbeats immediately started to sync, even if Ronan’s misfired when Adam touched his ring finger. He hummed against Adam’s skin whenever a piece of his future Christmas made Ronan want to kiss him or give him shit.
“A whole week, damn,” he murmured warmly. “For a whole week, you can definitely have your dumb sweaters.” And whatever else you want, he thought. He mirrored Adam’s stroking touch and pressed his face against the right side of Adam’s head.
“Alright, bossy. I was twelve. We came in second in one of those stupid music competitions - a Christmas Eve one - and you’d think we’d found the secret to world fucking peace with how much celebrating food Mom made.” Ronan huffed against Adam’s jaw. “Dad let us take serving platters of food out to the living room so we could watch Polar Express while we stuffed our faces and Mom sang hilariously wrong lyrics to Christmas songs while we did the dishes later. Shit, Declan laughed so hard he snorted soap bubbles.”
Feeling like he’d said too much, Ronan hugged Adam tightly and pressed his face back into his shoulder. “We fell asleep in a big dogpile on the couch. My shoulder was fucked the whole next day but...it was nice.”
Adam could fall asleep like this. Even sitting up, he was warm, stirred into comfort with every press of Ronan's mouth to his skin. He turned his face into Ronan's arm, hiding his grin at being called bossy. He returned affectionate kisses to wherever his lips could reach, slow and sleepy.
But as Ronan described his best Christmas, Adam's grip on Ronan's arms went tight, a strange fear of Ronan slipping away made him hold on. Don't go, the gesture seemed to say, stay with me. Adam knew that they were treading a thin line, that the wrong thought could drop the mood into something darker and sadder than the moment suggested.
Adam wanted Ronan here, in the soft bittersweetness of the memory: Aurora singing, Declan laughing, Niall still being alive before everything went sideways. A place that no longer existed but was still discernibly good.
"I changed my mind," Adam said, sounding serious. "My dream Christmas also has a music competition. You don't have to place, it's the participation that counts." Adam sat up then, twisted a little in their enclosed space, and kissed Ronan. Soft, dreamy, always with that unexpected sliver of urgency, a need.
"We could sleep on the couch tonight—this morning. But I don't think we'd actually sleep and I'd be the one who would end up with the messed up shoulder."
“You just want me to sing Santa Baby,” Ronan snorted, uncoiling enough to let Adam shift around. As comfortable as he’d been, seeing Adam’s face was always better. He leaned into the kiss and grazed his hands down Adam’s sides.
Really, Adam should’ve seen it coming. Not because he was psychic but because he knew Ronan so fucking well.
Ronan abruptly tipped them both over onto the rug, face to face and tangled up in the blanket. After a bit of wiggling, he had one strong leg over Adam’s hip and an arm under his boyfriend’s head, but the blanket was still a mess.
“Let’s just stay here for a bit,” he growled. “We can both get fucked up shoulders and maybe scandalize Gansey when he wakes up. Win-win.”
There were worse positions to be in. Adam only made a slightly over-exaggerated oof when Ronan tipped them to the floor, a breathless little laugh surprised out of him. He quickly tried to help—or in this case, only made worse—the blanket situation. Eventually, Adam settled with his hand on Ronan's thigh, turning his face so he could keep watching Ronan, all elegantly lit by Christmas lights and looking better than when Adam first came down stairs.
"Scandalizing Gansey is just a Christmas present you gave yourself," Adam said. "If you want to really up the ante, you could sing Santa Baby to me in front of him." He curled closer to Ronan, leeching warmth, adjusting himself to sleep. They only had a few hours before the rest of the house was up.
Adam closed his eyes, quiet for a long time as he started to drift, before whispering, "Merry Christmas, Ronan."
“Yeah, well, maybe you’ll luck out like that.” Ronan huffed a laugh and hugged Adam’s head. The heaviness in his heart was lighter the longer he had Adam in his arms. Their noses were almost touching, but rather than do anything as embarrassing as brushing his nose against Adam’s, he leaned, pressed a little kiss to the corner of Adam’s mouth, and then licked his cheek like a shithead.